Mummy's Colorful Collar Found in Egyptian Tomb

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A collar with "almost pristine" colors that would have been worn
by a mummy has been discovered in small pieces in an Egyptian
tomb in Thebes and put back together again.

People in ancient Egypt wore collars called "wesekhs" made of
beads when they were alive. This painted collar is made of a
different type of material called cartonnage (a plastered
material) and was meant to be worn by a mummy after death. A clay
seal found near the collar suggests that it was worn by the mummy
of a wealthy undertaker.

Dating back around 2,300 years ago and found in modern-day
Luxor,
the collar is painted in a vivid array of colors, designs and
images that show elements of ancient Egyptian religion. The god
Horus is signified by two falcons wearing red sun-disk crowns on
the top corners, while at top center is a human-headed bird
(called a "Ba" bird) that represents, in essence, the immortal
soul of the deceased mummy. [ In
Photos: The Mummy of King Ramesses III ]

Additionally, in the center of the design, there is a drawing of
a golden shrine with two goddesses, possibly the sisters Isis and
Nephthys, facing a deity in the center that may be the
jackal-headed Anubis. The collar is about 8.7 inches (22
centimeters) high (not including the falcons) and about 16.5
inches (42 cm) in width. Near the bottom of the collar lotus
blossoms are shown flourishing.

Complex tomb

The tomb that it was found in is a complex place. Originally it
was built more than 3,300 years ago for a butler named Parennefer
who served the pharaoh
Akhenaten. Then, sometime later, an official named Amenemopet
excavated his own tomb into part of the butler's courtyard. As
the centuries went on more individuals (the precise number is
unknown) were buried at the site, one of them being interred
around 2,300 years ago with this colorful collar.

The re-use of tombs was a common practice in Thebes. "I guess it
was much more economical to use these old derelict tombs than to
excavate out new tombs at that time," Susan Redford, of Penn
State University, told LiveScience in an interview. She and her
team found hundreds of cartonnage fragments in excavations at the
site, the fragments that made up this collar being discovered in
2000 and 2002. The team's artist, Rupert Nesbitt, carefully put
the collar back together again, along with several other
coverings that belong to different
mummies.

"These pieces could range from about palm-sized to dime-sized,"
Redford said. "It was like a giant jigsaw puzzle," added Redford,
who detailed the collar discovery in a paper in "Archaeological
Research in the Valley of the Kings & Ancient Thebes: Papers
Presented in Honor of Richard H. Wilkinson" (University of
Arizona Egyptian Expedition, 2013). [ See
Photos of Egypt's Valley of the Kings ]

Archaeologists cannot say for sure whom this collar belonged to.
In addition to being re-used multiple times the tomb site has
been robbed in both ancient and modern times and, until recently,
was even used to hold dead animals.

Egyptian
tombs and temples tended to be very colorful places and the
collar reflects that, Redford said.

An undertaker's collar?

The mummy who wore this collar is now gone or otherwise part of
the various humans remains found in the tomb. However, an
inscription written in a mud-clay seal was found near the
fragments of the collar.

The seal would have held together the string or binding of a
papyrus scroll. While the scroll itself is mostly destroyed, the
inscription from the seal says that it is for a man named
"Padihorwer," reading (in translation) that he was "privy to the
mysteries and god's sealer, 'embalmer,' scribe, prophet of the
'desert' (necropolis) of Qus," which is located north of Thebes.

An ancient archival record also survives, telling of "a man of
Qus" being buried at Thebes in the same period that the collar
has been dated to, Redford said.

Padihorwer was basically an undertaker, a profession that could
bring some level of wealth. "He's a little higher than just an
ordinary necropolis worker," she said, noting that these ancient
undertakers arranged for embalming and burial, were paid by
families and generally ran their affairs like a business. "We
think that they had a guild of sorts," she said, "it was a
business just like undertakers are today."

If this collar, with its elaborate decorations, was worn by
Padihorwer, it would suggest that his business prospered and that
he was a relatively wealthy undertaker at the time he was
buried.